Macworld 2010 GS Video

Vmlweb

Hey,

I was searching on youtube and I found this video


At 2:20 the GS guy says that the Pro package lets you in-app purchasing, objective C, admob and leader boards

Is this true because I don't think it is

quantumsheep

That's a great find.

And right now, the features mentioned aren't possible using the pro license...

QS

Vmlweb

I reckon those are the features planned although after the iPhone 4.0 announcement admob will probably be replaced with iAds

StormyStudio

good find.. cheers. VML

Photics

Stuff like this bothers me.

1) Why do we have to find out news like this through a third-party?

2) Heh, Pro is expensive! Those are really nice features, finally giving some real value to GameSalad Pro, but $2000 is way out of my budget right now.

BarkBarkCo

What I get out of the video is that eventually the Pro license will give the user access to the ObjC code ... allowing THEM to add any additional features needed.

If that is not going to happen, GS needs to contact that vlogger and have him create a retraction video.

BarkBarkCo

Guys, we need to float this topic to the top until the GS heads chime in! ;-)

Side note: GS CEO looks a whole lot like a junior dev at my company ... the resemblance is uncanny!

DanielA

Thats messed up that he tells that guy all of these cool features but non of us know about any of them..

Vmlweb

tshirtbooth said:
Wile we are waiting for there response lets all watch them eat

That's disappointing they're not eating Salad

Vmlweb

DanielA said:
Thats messed up that he tells that guy all of these cool features but non of us know about any of them..

I think he doesn't want to make the Pro version sound like a waste of money

DanielA

And probably to make GS sound even more amazing then it is.. But they need to keep the people that spent 2 grand on there software up to date on it.

UtopianGames

All the cool features that are supposed to be in pro and are not smells like BS to me

Anyway if they had these features in standard imagine how many new developers would sign up?....they would get thousands more paid members imo.

Many of my dev friends ask me "Hows GameSalad?" and i have to answer it's good for me (limited coder) but it lacks so many important features.

Online leaderboards, png collision detection (instead of the simple rectangle circle), and many many more.

Darren.

mrfunkleberry

That reminds me i must buy some chopsticks. The ones i had were rendered unuseable when the wife and i had our spat of lightsaber fights. Ah memories, took me ages to dislodge the buggers.

iDeveloperz

Maybe you can, has anyone tried showing the package contents in a pro .app file?

carlos.varela.com

yes, why?

iDeveloperz

It could contain an Xcode project file. But if you've checked then obviously not.

Chunkypixels

hmmmm..... yup, rather interesting video.

An update and explanation to the GameSalad community concerning the Express v. Pro issue, pricing structure and development roadmap are long overdue.

Over-hyping it up to a blogger with a camera at a conference, whilst keeping your paying community in the dark really doesnt help build confidence in the developers.... unless your about to deliver something big-time.

UtopianGames

@tshirtbooth. Yeah i hear you but imo there's no way 99% of developers could justify $2K on pro, even if i made 10 games a year i reckon unless i'm very lucky i would be struggling to make $2k in revenue.

I know your going to say make a good game and it will sell but we did that with Tumble Jumble and even had Chillingo behind us and havn't made anywhere near $2K and that took 6 months solid to make.

Probably not making myself clear but even if it had all the requested features i still think its not worth it simply because there's no guarantee you will make $2k a year in the 1st place.

Darren.

nulo

and all that coming from a 2 month old video. oh well.

BarkBarkCo

@utopiangames, Was that a GS game?

Chunkypixels

$2000 per year is definately a hard price to justify when compared to other similar tools that offer more robust engines, and more complete feature lists often for a lower one off price.

Even more so when the Pro license simply offers so little over and above the Express license.

For the record, I think GameSalad is a great tool, with a lot of promise. But at the same time, its also a frustrating tool, and needs a lot of work to bring it up to where it needs to be, to justify the pro pricing.

@Utopian ..... Im quite surprised to hear TumbleJumble did poorly. Its a very polished product, and one that i'd have thought would have done at least moderately well, especially with having the publisher involvement. Did TJ ever get featured?

Eastbound

They didn't even make it sound like the ability to edit your game in xcode was coming, they made it sound like you already can.

Oh and it isn't $1900 a year. You can't be rounding down $99 when telling the price -_-

They also failed to mention that these are yearly subscription fees...

BarkBarkCo

Eastbound said:
They didn't even make it sound like the ability to edit your game in xcode was coming, they made it sound like you already can.

I agree with you for the most part. The only cue I got that this was not currently available was his "that's pretty much what we are aiming for" comment...

adent42

Good afternoon all!

So, seems like you're all wondering where are all the amazing features promised in this interview? Well they're still in the pipeline (and we have a very long pipeline filled with great stuff for you). When that interview was taken, we had every intention of finishing those features as soon as possible. But as with all things tech, things change quickly.

Our first priority after Macworld was to get iPad support out to you, so you would all have rare opportunity to be a launch title. Now because the iPad release was finished before the actual hardware was available to us, we spent some quite a bit of time reconciling emulator to reality.

Once that was complete, we took a pulse of the community and decided that the next most important thing to do was to do a stability pass. While it's not perfect yet, a release is in the pipeline (ask the sous-chefs) that should be much nicer to work with with a number of optimizations and bug fixes.

Finally, you might ask about where these features are in the pipeline. We've already implemented a proof of concept, but they were never ready for prime time. We pride ourselves striving towards intuitive design, even for advanced users. We try very hard not to release a half-baked product (usually it's at least 3/4 baked when it gets to you).

These features are definitely coming, please be patient. I would like to note that since that interview, the landscape has changed in the iPhone/iPad world. With the impending release of iPhone 4.0, a number of features related to that release (rhymes with iPad) have been elevated in priority. You might have to wait a little longer, but I assure you it's going to be worth it.

I hope that answers your concerns.

-T

P.S. Strangely enough most of the GameSalad crew don't eat salad all that often... go figure. I think I'll have a salad for lunch today to make up for it. Now go marvel at the updated list of 502 GameSalad games

BarkBarkCo

Thanks for the update ... Sorry for the arm twisting. ;-)

I think your post will help increase the GS community morale a little.

I'm hoping "rhymes with iPad" becomes available just prior to my app(s) being ready ... ;-)

Eastbound

iAd will be amazing. Lite versions making additional money or free ad driven games.

Thanks for the prompt response!

Chunkypixels

Whilst its very nice to see a GameSalad representative chip in.... I have to say that we just got the usual, very vague response.

We gained no more useful information on any of the actual issues the community are wanting to know about than we already knew.

it was the usual "trust us, were working on things"...... but not really telling us anything.

Eastbound

Yes it did. They mentioned that integrating the new 4.0 features has become high on the to do list, namely with iAd.

They also said that a new update would be coming out fairly soon, but it will be addressing reliability and bug fixes primarily.

And the response addressed why the features mentioned in the video didn't come as fast, with the release of the iPad taking priority.

UtopianGames

@Chunkypixels. Yeah TJ got featured over xmas of all times and sold over 300 on that day but all in all it hasn't made $2K pretty close but not there yet which is my main reason for thinking pro isn't worth the $$$$.

Lets break it down a little because we had a team of 4 working on TJ, an Artist, Musician, Me and a coder friend. Chillingo took 25% apple 30% which leaves 4 to split 45%.

In order for pro to be viable for us we would need to make 4 games of a similar standard to TJ (gamesalad doesn't come close to the features we had in TJ, facebook connect online top 100 leaderboards for all levels, download upload your own levels etc etc).

$1900 in the mad iphone games world isn't viable even if it had a zillion promised features that by the sounds of it you won't see any of the things mentioned above until at least next year so i will sit back and wait until the Pro version delivers everything i require then re-evaluate the situation.

Don't get me wrong i love GS Love you guys and planned on making several smaller quicker games this year so GS suits my needs but i like you wish it had more features so it can be taken seriously and we can make the games we want to make.

Png collision and online leaderboards must be GS's number 1 on the list or imo there losing a lot of customers.

Darren.

Darren.

Eastbound

@Utopiangames: I'm a bit confused, because I searched for your app and it shows that click gamer was your publisher, not Chillingo?

I think you would have been better off not using a publisher, though. From what I've read, they really only put effort into marketing apps that are immediately successes, so in your case, they just sapped away money.

And are you saying that the app hasn't even made $2,000 total? (before the Chillingo cut).

From what I can tell your app should be doing much better. Perhaps you should look into a freeappaday.com promotion.

UtopianGames

Chillingo and Click gamer are the same team, same people, Click gamer is another brand for none triple A titles.

Yeah i also hear that about publishers and it was exactly our experience with CG.

I'm saying it hasn't made the team $2K but i hope it will by the end of the year as it's still selling between 0-8 a day:P

We have a lite version with 8 playable levels so not sure making it free would do a lot but yes i will certainly ask Chillingo about it.

Darren.